Shadows in the mirror
by We're all living in Hetalia
Summary: The older brother's face remained still but his tone gave away how stupid he considered Inuyasha's question. 'I live here.' …huh? Ten minues, a nearly dismantled rooftop and several arguments later Inuyasha was sitting in the same room as his brother, clutching on to Tetsusaiga's handle with every intention of pulling the sword out at the first suspicious movement.


**Not exactly canon compliant and I might have thoroughly messed up the characterization. Warnings for violence, gore, swearing - but I doubt you'll read anything you wouldn't see in the anime anyway.**

 **This was supposed to be a one-shot but for some strange reason it turned into a multichaptered work in progress... No, I don't get it either.**

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 _Cold_. That was all Inuyasha's mind registered before slipping into the pitch-black darkness.

When he came to, it was to the sensation of warmth. A quick glance downwards let him know that most of his body was wrapped up in several layers of fur. They didn't smell like anything, neither the creature they were made of, nor the user – which was most certainly not Inuyasha. The hanyou had never been particularly fond of furry garments of any kind, an aversion that may or may not have stemmed from semi-regularly seeing his insufferable older brother parading around in an oversized one.

As he sat up, taking in the unfamiliar room with a fire burning in the middle and a few odd candles here and there, his nose picked up on a single smell. It was fruity and came from the directions of the flames.

'Incense, huh,' he murmured, already hating where this was going. The smell was not unpleasant – in fact it was quite soothing, but that was all the more reason for worry. It wouldn't have been an illogical assumption that someone wanted to block his sense of smell just so that they could pull a trick on him.

Inuyasha wasn't much for thinking though, it was rather his well-honed sense of self-preservation that warned him about the suspicious signs.

He pushed the furs aside without a single care for where they landed (as long as they didn't catch on fire anyway) and jumped to his feet. They were just as bare as usual but as for the rest of him…

'What the hell!'

His usual red clothing, the precious fire rat material was gone. Never mind that it was one of the only two things he inherited from his father but the red garments also did wonders in keeping him unharmed against several enemies. There were few fangs and claws among the lower ranked demons that could easily tear through them. All in all it was an infuriating loss which wasn't made any less severe by discovering that someone had put some sort of clothing over him.

To make matters worse, Tetsusaiga was nowhere in sight. The room was plain enough that a quick sweep of golden eyes could take in the whole interior. There wasn't much to see.

Inuyasha clenched his fists in anger. Just whatever the flying fuck had happened that made him wake up in an unknown place, without his own clothes and his sword?

Ready to take the whole world on if that was what it took to get his precious heirlooms back, Inuyasha practically burst through the door, out into a patio covered ankle-deep with snow. The wind blew a handful of it into his face too and boy wasn't that one hell of a contrast to the warmth under the furs in the fire-lit room…! Not that he hadn't faced worse weather before but it was still a mild annoyance adding to his beginning temper tantrum. Somebody was going to bleed very soon, that he was sure of.

All thoughts of blood spraying on snow were pushed aside though when his nose caught the myriad of smells surrounding him. The little garden in between the walls where he stood seemed deserted enough but the hanyou could still pick up the smell of at least a hundred different demons, many of them different species too. The place was practically infested with them, painting a grim picture of his possible escape route. It seemed that he was going to have to claw his way through them all, grab Testusaiga and the fire rat from wherever they were kept and then make a run for it. Yes, run, because in spite of his quick temper even Inuyasha wasn't enough of an idiot to sense such a large number of dangerous-smelling demons and go up against them all without a weapon. Or any knowledge of where he was for that matter. No, as much as he wanted revenge for whoever saw fit to rob him, Inuyasha was going to stomp down on that urge and make sure to make it out of the building (a castle, most likely) alive.

Whoever knocked him out and kidnapped him was enough of an idiot not to seal him within that room – or shrewd enough to lay traps where he expected the least, he thought bitterly. While it didn't feel like the work of Naraku and nor did he smell that foul stench of the bastard, he could vividly recall that certain instance with Kanna. Not sensing a demon didn't mean that there wasn't one. Not seeing a barrier didn't mean that there wasn't one. Not seeing your enemies didn't mean that you had none.

He scaled the closest wall easily, perching on top of the roof. It was indeed a castle, a ridiculously big one at that. Size was not the only thing that set it apart from their usual sleeping places (courtesy of Miroku). As he took the whole picture in, the hanyou spotted several demons walking about. Some wore heavy armors while others could have almost been mistaken for an elegantly dressed human if not for the occasional horns sticking out of their heads or the typically sharp ears of certain kind of youkai. His own ears twitched at the sound of conversation right below him. They were two women from the sound of it, one talking about some sort of herb to counter poison while the other occasionally hummed to show that she was listening. Not the information Inuyasha needed.

He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, trying to keep his landing as soft as possible to avoid early detection. If any of the demons here had a strong sense of smell then-

'Oh hell no…!'

He nearly crashed through the nearest rooftop when the stench reached his nostrils. How he managed to miss it so far way a mystery – perhaps the incense in his room was stronger than he thought but now out in the open it was unmistakable.

The white sky made it difficult to make out anything up there but Inuyasha strained his eyes stubbornly anyway for a more or less familiar sight of a white beast approaching. He didn't have to wait long to be able to make out a pair of red eyes and purple markings within the blinding whiteness.

'Sesshoumaru,' the hanyou growled the name he grew to hate quite early on in his life. The daiyoukai was approaching the castle, much to his dismay and he didn't have a sword to cut off another arm. This time he would have made sure that the bastard never held a sword again – neither the Testusaiga, nor Tokijin or even the dullest rusty blade left behind on the battlefield. Nothing.

As if he owned the freaking place, Sesshoumaru found it fit to descend on the roof merely a few steps away from Inuyasha, albeit at least he did it in his humanoid form. Doing so as a giant dog would probably have resulted in someone having to reconstruct half of the castle.

Then again, every time the two of them appeared, a fight broke out. Whoever owned the place was going to have to replace most of it after they were done anyway.

'Inuyasha,' the daiyoukai greeted him.

'The hell are you doing here, bastard?' Inuyasha greeted him back. Kagome would have most likely called that an insult but even she couldn't quite argue with the fact that Sesshoumaru was a giant ass who didn't exactly deserve much respect, least of all from Inuyasha.

The older brother's face remained still, much like a mask, but his tone gave away how stupid he considered Inuyasha's question.

'I live here.'

…huh?

Ten minues, a nearly dismantled rooftop and several arguments later Inuyasha was sitting in the same room as his brother, clutching on to Tetsusaiga's handle with every intention of pulling the sword out at the first suspicious movement.

What Sesshoumaru told him was absolutely ridiculous. Yes, he did remember fighting some strange witches that may or may not have worked for Naraku and falling through… something, but that something being a portal to a different world? One similar to his and different at the same time?

'It's bullshit,' he concluded, not willing to listen to any more of Sesshoumaru's idiocy. 'I'm not putting up with this anymore.'

With that said, he practically stomped out of the room with every intention of finding his friends and rejoining them, no matter how many demons he had to slay on the way. If someone from the castle tried to stop him, so be it, he was more than ready to carve a bloody path, especially now that Sesshoumaru was enough of a fool to hand Testusaiga and the fire rat back. With those, there was little that could stop Inuyasha on his way-

'Do as you wish,' he heard the youkai say, 'but I must warn you that it's not safe out there.'

'Keh! Like it's safe _in_ here!'

No one tried to stop the hanyou as he left, even though he felt several pairs of eyes on his back while moving through the rooftops towards the gates. No barrier stood in his way either as he jumped over that last obstacle towards freedom, towards the way back to his friends. Since Sesshoumaru seemed to have gone stir crazy recently (more so than he originally was anyway) there was little sense in Inuyasha demanding him to tell where his friends were. No, he was going to look for them himself. Kagome's smell was distinct enough, especially because of the holy power mixing in it and Kirara was similarly easy to locate on most days. Inuyasha was fairly confident in his ability to find them and more than ready to forget this odd episode in what was apparently Sesshoumaru's castle.

Except luck wasn't on his side and neither were the current weather conditions. Fighting a smaller army of angry bear youkai (why couldn't the damn things sleep, weren't they supposed to spend winter in their cave or something?!) was only the beginning. He fell into a frozen lake twice, courtesy of a goddamn octopus-like demon that seemed hell-bent on eating hanyou for dinner, continuing through several snowstorms, one of which blew Inuyasha straight into a nearby rock (several dozen bone fractures and most likely internal bleeding included) and culminated in a goddamn snow leopard attacking him. No, not the average snow leopard that was a skilled hunter but still only an animal. Inuyasha's luck threw a snow leopard _demon_ his way that seemed to bear some kind of a grudge against him. Or hanyou. Or inu youkai. Really, it could have been any of the above because the creature was not a particularly coherent speaker. On the other hand it made up for this lack of communication skills witch razor-sharp claws and fangs that nearly decapitated Inuyasha. Several times in a row.

Considering that he had an extensive array of fresh injuries, a big-ass demon hot on his heels and still not a whiff of his friends, it was hardly a surprise that Inuyasha was pissed beyond belief.

He shifted Testusaiga from his right to his left while running and dodging the attacks of the frenzied youkai. His right arm was rendered useless after being crushed under the creature's paw and the hanyou was left with no other option but to wield the sword with his only (mostly) intact hand. Never once had he made anything more than a half-hearted sweep with his left before and bloodthirst aside, this was really not the day he wanted to figure out if the Backlash Wave worked with a limited amount of limbs as well.

A tree had given way to the immense weight of the approaching demon and Inuyasha dodged at the last moment, rolling in the snow. His fire rat was covered in so much snow he swore it almost counted as camouflage by the time he stood on his two feet again but of course the damn cat just wouldn't leave him alone. What the hell had he done to deserve this?! All he wanted was to find his friends and then-

'Fuck you and your furballs!' he yelled angrily at the leopard that had just spat something his way. Whatever it was, the gooey thing managed to melt stone away which was reason enough for Inuyasha to stay the fuck away from it. He had yet to see a hanyou that could regrow limbs and he wasn't about to test it by touching that thing.

His enemy – not too surprisingly – wasn't deterred by the insult and kept up the attacks. One of the claws came dangerously close to rip Inuyasha in half. It was ironic how he managed to avoid his untimely demise by accidentally slipping on ice. That way the claws only dug about an inch deep into his chest – something he was most likely going to survive. Now if only the beast hadn't seen this as the prime opportunity to pounce at the hanyou lying on the ground…

In a last desperate attempt to turn things around, Inuyasha raised Testusaiga and pointed it towards the leopard demon. The wind scar started manifesting around the blade, encircling it as usual but in the hanyou's eyes it was slow. Way too slow. He stubbornly willed the blade to work faster before-

The huge body of the snow leopard blocked out all the light, leaving Inuyasha in almost complete darkness. And then it was gone in a flesh. Testusaiga's wind hit open air, doing little more than swirling some of the falling snow a little. It was as if the beast had just disappeared but how could that be? Surely there was something more to it and Inuyasha was nothing if not determined to find out.

Pushing himself up with his sword hand (because the other was about as solid as minced meat at the moment) he looked around to see the most surreal image of his life so far. Considering he had fought Naraku several times already and got nearly dragged to hell by the ghost of the woman he loved, that was saying something.

A bit further down the valley there were two ridiculously large creatures going at each other's throats. Both of them were covered in white fur that almost made them blend in if not for the occasional splotches of blood here and there.

'… Sesshoumaru?!'

Had he been in a better state, Inuyasha would have been furious about his brother butting in. Who the hell was he to interrupt the fight of someone else?! As it was, the hanyou was still irritated, very much so, but a tiny logical part of his brain whispered that maybe, just maybe it wasn't a bad thing that Sesshoumaru stepped in. The Wind Scar from the Tetsusaiga might have come too late to be of any use. It was something he didn't want to consider but that hardly kept it from being a possibility.

The two youkai growled so strongly between their attacks that it reverberated from the surrounding valley in a cacophony, irritating Inuyasha's sensitive ears further. Those fuckers were being way too loud for his liking, although at least them being at each other's throats meant that the hanyou had a moment to breathe. He would never have admitted to it though, not out loud in any case.

A few seconds later and ear-piercing shreak came from one of those two – Inuyasha had a hard time to tell which, although his mind refused to believe that Sesshoumaru would lower himself to such a display even on the edge of certain death.

And then everything was a blur and all Inuyasha could concentrate on was the searing pain in his midsection.

Fangs – he realized through the struggle and his slowly fading vision. There were fangs tearing through his body, or maybe even just one, he couldn't quite tell, not with the black spots growing bigger in his vision, not with his strength leaving his body…

…and like that the hanyou drifted off into complete darkness.


End file.
